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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Two women, two worlds. Together they must risk everything
'Judith Wilkes, an ambitious journalist, leaves her husband and two sons in Australia and goes to Malaysia to report on the international refugee crisis. Ten years earlier, Malaysia provided Judith with her first major career success, but also with a personal disaster that she would like to forget.
'While on assignment Judith encounters Minou, the manipulative young French-Vietnamese wife of a high-ranking Australian diplomat. Minou is desperate to rescue her children from Saigon, who were left behind when she fled. Judith also begins a romance with the enigmatic Indian scholar Kanan. These new loyalties throw her headlong into dramatic personal and professional dilemmas. It is on the East Malaysian coast, where the giant turtles gather to lay their eggs, that the conflict reaches its tragic, brutal climax.' (Publication summary)
Adaptations
-
form
y
Turtle Beach
( dir. Stephen Henry Wallace
)
1992
Australia
Los Angeles
:
Roadshow Coote and Carroll
New Regency Productions
,
1992
Z460528
1992
single work
film/TV
Reporter Judith Wilkes leaves her husband and two sons in Sydney and goes to Malaysia to cover the story of the Vietnamese boat people. She becomes romantically involved with Kanan and strikes up a friendship with Lady Minou Hobday, who keeps a regular vigil at Turtle Beach, where the refugees try to land. Hobday's obsession with the beach is due to her secret hope that one day her own children will arrive there. Accompanying Hobday one night, Judith witnesses a brutal massacre by the Malaysians, which spurs her on to expose the horrors of the internment camps at Bidong.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Inaccuracy and Distortion as Means of Positioning the Reader : A Study of Turtle Beach Texts
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 594-622) Examines the book and the film Turtle Beach and their quasi-doumentary techniques in relation to historical accuracy and ethnic stereotypes. -
Doing Cultural Pluralism in Australia, Against the Tide : An Interim Response to Our Reviewers
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Borderlands , vol. 3 no. 3 2004; -
Ordinary Australian Orientalisms: Racialised and Gendered Approaches to the Turtle Beach Texts in Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Borderlands , vol. 3 no. 3 2004; -
The Metropolitan Gaze : Travellers, Bodies and Spaces
2000
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Intersections , September no. 4 2000; -
y
Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia : Politics, Neo/Post-Colonialism, and Fact/Fiction
Malaysia
:
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
,
2000
Z1122071
2000
single work
criticism
Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia 'considers contemporary and historical examples from Australian culture, literature, politics, media and society, contrasting Asian traditions and the experience of non-Anglo migrants in Australia. This is an account of the worldview underlying much of Anglo-Australian culture, of the difficulty it has had in understanding Asia and Asians, and in constructing a meaningful and durable relationship with Asian societies and cultures.' (Publisher's blurb)
A significant section of the book (p.199-269) focuses on Blanche D'Alpuget's Turtle Beach, a novel published in 1981 and set in Malaysia. D'Cruz and Steele examine the novel's theoretical, cultural and political framework, and deconstruct the manner in which the book positions the reader.
-
Aussie Still in Search of Self
1980
single work
review
— Appears in: Helix , [Supplement to issue 9/10] 1981; 1980; (p. 28-35)
— Review of Turtle Beach 1981 single work novel ; Cherry Bloom 1980 single work novel -
Australians Through Ethnic Looking Glasses
1981
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 12 May vol. 101 no. 5263 1981; (p. 89)
— Review of Turtle Beach 1981 single work novel -
Australians in Strange Places
1981
single work
review
— Appears in: The National Times , 1-7 March 1981; (p. 48)
— Review of Turtle Beach 1981 single work novel -
Current Issues Explored for Timeless Themes
1981
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 7 March 1981; (p. 27)
— Review of Turtle Beach 1981 single work novel -
Finding Their Range : Some Recent Australian Novels
1981
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 40 no. 4 1981; (p. 522-525)
— Review of Turtle Beach 1981 single work novel ; Bliss 1981 single work novel ; Man of Letters : A Romance 1981 single work novel ; City of Women : A Novel 1981 single work novel ; Moonlite 1981 single work novel ; Monkeys in the Dark 1980 single work novel -
The Conflict between Two Differing Consciences : Blanche d'Alpuget's Turtle Beach
1995
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Literary Criterion , vol. 30 no. 1-2 1995; (p. 105-112) -
y
Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia : Politics, Neo/Post-Colonialism, and Fact/Fiction
Malaysia
:
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
,
2000
Z1122071
2000
single work
criticism
Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia 'considers contemporary and historical examples from Australian culture, literature, politics, media and society, contrasting Asian traditions and the experience of non-Anglo migrants in Australia. This is an account of the worldview underlying much of Anglo-Australian culture, of the difficulty it has had in understanding Asia and Asians, and in constructing a meaningful and durable relationship with Asian societies and cultures.' (Publisher's blurb)
A significant section of the book (p.199-269) focuses on Blanche D'Alpuget's Turtle Beach, a novel published in 1981 and set in Malaysia. D'Cruz and Steele examine the novel's theoretical, cultural and political framework, and deconstruct the manner in which the book positions the reader.
-
Ordinary Australian Orientalisms: Racialised and Gendered Approaches to the Turtle Beach Texts in Australia's Ambivalence Towards Asia
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Borderlands , vol. 3 no. 3 2004; -
Doing Cultural Pluralism in Australia, Against the Tide : An Interim Response to Our Reviewers
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Borderlands , vol. 3 no. 3 2004; -
Inaccuracy and Distortion as Means of Positioning the Reader : A Study of Turtle Beach Texts
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 594-622) Examines the book and the film Turtle Beach and their quasi-doumentary techniques in relation to historical accuracy and ethnic stereotypes.
Awards
- 1981 winner Government Biennial Literature Prize (SA)
- 1981 shortlisted National Book Council Award for Australian Literature
- 1981 winner Braille Book of the Year Award
- 1981 winner The Age Book of the Year Award — Imaginative Writing Prize
- 1981 winner Sydney PEN Golden Jubilee Award
-
cMalaysia,cSoutheast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
- 1970s